In 1953, Stanley Donald Stookey, then a young researcher at Corning Glass Works, made a serendipitous discovery when a furnace containing a piece of a lithium disilicate glass with precipitated silver particles (intended to form a permanent photographic image) accidentally overheated to about 900 deg C. Instead of finding a molten pool of glass (and a ruined furnace), the astonished Stookey observed a white material that hand not changed shape. Then he accidentally dropped the piece on the concrete floor but it sounded more like metal than glass, and did not shatter. Surprised by the unusual toughness of the material, he had accidentally created the first glass-ceramic, denominated Fotoceram! This article takes a look at an impressive variety of glass-ceramics that has been developed since then, and speculates about discoveries yet to be seen.
